A product display rack for in store display of consumer items such as packaged foods and beverages.
Successful marketing of consumer items often times is dependent on how effectively the product is displayed. Effectiveness is in part determined by the location of the product within a retail outlet and the location of the particular products on the shelves. Typically, consumer items, and particularly foods and beverages, are displayed on permanent shelving in aisles throughout a retail store. Staple items tend to be placed on lower shelves because consumers will seek them out. However, impulse items are particularly sensitive to marketing techniques and, in particular, they are sensitive to the location of the products within a store and their location on the shelves within the store. Impulse items are preferably displayed at premium locations throughout a particular store to encourage and promote the sales of these products. Premium locations may include end of aisle locations, point of purchase locations at checkout counters, and/or other promotional locations within a particular store environment. Impulse items are often times likewise displayed at eye level on conventional shelving to promote easy visibility and access.
Permanent shelves however are fixed in position in the store and the products displayed thereon are displayed amongst many other products sometimes making them somewhat difficult to acquire and locate. It is believed that product positioning on conventional shelves is not as effective in marketing certain products as other locations in the store. End of aisle and check out displays are considered premium locations for positioning products particularly impulse items. However, it is expensive for a supplier to have its products displayed at premium locations and often times budgets will not allow continuous long term display in such premium locations. Because of the wide variety of products and the way suppliers desire to display such items, conventional shelving often times will not suffice necessitating specialty display racks. Specialty display racks are however often times dedicated to a particular product container and lack versatility to merchandise and display other products. Such display racks, if dedicated to a specific brand of product, cannot be easily converted, if at all, for use with other brands of products thereby limiting their scope of use by a retailer and reducing its desirability. Thus, a display rack should be changeable so that a supplier or retailer can reposition the product to a desired location on the rack or change the product being displayed thereon.
Another problem with known display racks is that they need to be sufficiently strong and durable for holding a significant amount of weight particularly when the products are soft drinks or other beverage products. Display racks for end of aisle displays are typically large and have many parts but should be easy and inexpensive to ship. Such display racks also need to be easy and quick to assemble by store personnel.
Thus, there is a need for an improved product display rack that is effective to overcome the above problems.